Labs

This open-source browser shares its lineage with Netscape - once the most popular web browser, but recently shelved by its current owners, AOL. However, as Netscape is put out to pasture, Firefox is enjoying great success with a market share of around 15 per cent.

Because it's open source, Firefox benefits from a massive array of add-on features, known as Extensions. One of our favourites is a spellchecker that works directly in text-entry boxes, complete with a custom dictionary, which is perfect for webmail. Others download YouTube videos to your hard disk, preview a page by hovering over a link, display a slideshow of all images on a page or use Gmail as a remote storage

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device. The list is huge.

Even in its default state, Firefox has the best search facilities here. The Search bar taps into a generous selection of search engines and websites. When Google or Yahoo! is selected, a Suggestions feature auto-completes words based on common searches. Right-clicking on highlighted text on a page gives an option to search for the text using the selected engine, with results appearing in a separate tab. Safari and Opera have similar features, but search results replace the current tab, which isn't as useful. Locating text within a page is just as impressive. Hitting the / key opens a Quick Find bar at the bottom of the screen, and results are shown and updated as soon as you start typing.

Firefox's handling of RSS newsfeeds is different to its competitors'. Headlines appear as drop-down lists, so they are quicker to scan, but there are no filtering options. Still, if you want more sophisticated RSS tools, there are plenty to choose from in the form of Extensions.

Performance was above average across our tests, and memory usage was the lowest by quite a margin. With so many strengths, barely any flaws, and a large market share ensuring widespread compatibility with websites, Firefox 2 is our clear favourite.